The Sandbox
by Hideout Writer
Summary: A place to hide all the odd things my mind comes up with, but never gets around to truly developing. You can have anything in here if you credit me for the idea, right after you credit whoever made the bigger sandbox you are happily playing about in.
1. System 7 & Mythril Engines

_So…this is just a place to hide odd ideas that I come up with; a grab bag of unfinished stories, as-yet unused plot devices, and whatever else I can get my sticky fingers on that is short and fails to fit elsewhere._

 _Up first: System 7, and the Mythril Engines. Enjoy…!_

Classification: Plot device.

Status: Unused.

Permission to Use: True.

Restrictions: No changes may be made without permission from Author (Hideout Writer)

Reference this Author as point of origination.

 _System 7:_

System 7 is a technological system, designed for use as a quality of life enhancement for humans.

It starts with a base of nanites. These nanites greatly accelerate biological repairs, and establish multiple small interfaces within targeted sectors of the brain.

As a preventative measure, the system establishes four secondary circulators that provide backup power (in terms of blood flow) in the event of a heart failure. The flow rate is roughly equivalent to forty-five beats per minute, but due to the circulators being purely mechanical in nature, do not exhibit a detectable pulse. Major contacts are created near the heart for heart-rate control, or to restart the heart in the event of failure. Similarly, all arteries and major veins are widened by two hundred percent, then artificially restricted such that the restrictors can regulate blood pressure in the event of an extremely high heart rate.

After the creation of preventative measure systems, S7 moves to repair of pre-existing conditions, and is capable of correcting chemical imbalances in the brain, rooting out and destroying cancerous cells, repairing tissue damage, repairing broken bones, and even prompting the building of new limbs in the case of birth defects or catastrophic damage.

S7's nanites also maintain greater than bodily average concentrations overall within the brain, to better allow for communications and control. These interface with all senses, and maintain an interface that exits the skull entirely. These interfaces allow the system to present the user/host with sensory inputs that are not present in actuality.

With the higher than average concentrations of nanites within the brain, System 7 is capable of autonomic system overrides. With the interfaces in the sensory centers of the brain, the system is able to display autonomic override options to the user's conscious sensory input stream.

This allows any user, with little to no prior knowledge of human systems, to take complete control over their autonomic systems, allowing them to manually set sleep/wake times, control heartrates, induce production of adrenaline, just to cite a few examples. This allows for maximal leverage of human capabilities in a variety of environments. System 7 comes with safeguards already set in place that can prevent the user from doing damage to their own bodies from overuse of overrides, or reckless use of the overrides, but an experienced user can choose to temporarily circumvent the safeguards in exceptional circumstances.

Due to the extremely high level of integration, System 7 is best suited to give nutritional advice, as it is perfectly customized to each user's specific needs and activity patterns.

The second stage of the system is a set of pods that sit over the shoulders. Two titanium screws secure a U-shaped bracket to the collarbones, using a titanium screw socket set into the collarbone. The bend of the bracket is closest to the neck, and is twisted by ninety degrees for better airflow. Each pod measures four inches long, one inch wide, and three quarters of an inch thick. All vertices of the pods are rounded 90 degree corners. The pods are arranged lengthwise along the shoulders, and mounted onto the brackets via a sliding slot beneath the pods.

The pods carry sensors of all descriptions, giving the user far more sensory data than originally equipped with. The nanites within the brain sort and filter the information to prevent it from causing an overload in the user's consciousness. The sensors are extremely miniaturized, to allow for a total maximum of one hundred and fifty sensors per pod, and can be outfitted according to the user's needs or desires. Each pod is powered by a 75-year sealed system pocket fusion powerplant, and is capable of carrying Directed Energy Weapons (DEWs) within an openable section. They are also designed to carry overhead shield emitters, generating a cone-shaped shield over the user's head and shoulders, for use as a windbreak device. The total weight of each pod is four ounces.

 _Mythril Engines:_

Mythril is a magical metal well known for a number of amazing magical properties. Lightweight, capable of flexing without succumbing to metal fatigue, and able to transmit electrical impulses within a conductive environment without discharging into the conductive environment, it is perfect for use within a human body as a conductor.

Mythril must be worked into ritual shapes in order to wring benefits out of it. A four-post cage, known as the powerplant, must be ritually worked into place via song during open heart surgery, or it can be worked around the heart prior to transplanting, if conditions for the integrity of the heart can be maintained.

Conduits of braided strands run from the powerplant out to the palms and heels of the user, and supply power to the engines. As with the powerplant, the conduits must be sung into place. The engines are made of very fine wire, and, unlike the powerplant and conduits, can be tattooed into place, or hand bent. They appear in their unpowered state to be a silver tattoo of a fifteen-point star in the user's palm or heel. Minor variations in the design of the star manipulate the output of the engines.

The magical properties of the powerplant, plus the nanites of System 7 can allow the heart to operate at speeds of up to five hundred beats per minute for brief periods of time, though this causes catastrophic damage to the heart that forces it to stop working entirely within approximately fifteen minutes, resulting in flame-out on all engines upon cardiac arrest.

Designed for use in parallel with System 7, the engines require a minimum heart rate of one hundred per minute before they begin to generate any kind of thrust, though they can begin to visibly flicker, exhibit a fully-formed flame, and generate engine noise at heart rates as low as eight-five per minute. Takeoff can be achieved with the correct configuration at one hundred and ten bpm, which translates to roughly ninety miles per hour. At five hundred bpm, a correctly configured user can reach speeds of up to Mach 5.

With proper changes to the design of the star, weaponry can be added, though the addition of weapons removes power availability to the engines, and requires a higher heart rate in order to maintain the same speeds that a user not powering weapons could achieve. The color, yield size, and shape of the energetic discharge of the weapons array are dependent on the design of the star, and will match the exhaust of that engine when running normally.

Mythril engines are rated for an average of fifteen hundred flight hours, or one thousand firing cycles, depending on the user's proclivities. The actual operating time of any mythril engine is highly variable, and can be extended by running at lower power/speed ratings, while higher power/speed settings (above 200 bpm/1480mph) can actively wear down the engine.

Engine failure is usually marked by a detonation, followed by a streamer of black smoke and decreased thrust. Occasionally, an engine can fail and still generate some thrust, though this usually only happens with engines kept at lower speeds. Weapon failure generates the same symptoms as engine failure, though without the possibility of minor continued function for a brief period following the failure.

Engines can be ejected by grasping the thumb, and pulling it down to a near 90-degree angle, relative to the other fingers, then bending the fingers back. The ejection tends to have the appearance of being mildly spring loaded. In the case of a mild failure, the engine will appear on initial inspection to be intact, though blackened. In the case of a complete failure, the engine will eject in fragmented shards. If a user has a new hand-bent engine available, he or she may simply grasp the thumb with the opposing hand, and from the ejecting position, return it to a position parallel to the palm, then press the palm onto the engine. This must be done on a hard surface.

Given enough material, mythril from destroyed engines can be reused in new engines at a concentration of up to 100% recycled material, though nearly 30% of the material recycled is lost in purification and refinement. The slag runoff from the purification and refinement stages can be continuously recycled, though with diminishing returns.

 _And there you have it. Tell me what you thought, and if you found this idea to be usable, please, tell me! I'd love to check it out! Good hunting, and have fun writing!_


	2. Lantean Dragons

Atlantis I: Dragons.

Atlantis is a continent, a nation, and a city, with their own variant of dragon to boot.

While the Oriental dragons of Asia tend to look like serpents, and the European dragons are built like tanks, the Lantean dragons are much smaller, on average ranging from large cat to mid-sized dog. They have no spikes whatsoever, unlike the Asian and European dragons, and have been known to have feathers. Their tail splits into three separate limbs from the tips to about a quarter of the length of the tail. These limbs can be independently controlled, and are joined to each other via a thin membrane. When flying, they never flap, but instead propel themselves through the skies on the force of their mana alone.

They are often brightly colored, and it is rumored that they can change their coloration, but none know for certain, aside from the dragons themselves. They are a secretive race, maintaining their own language and racial secrets, though they hold no such regard for any secret that isn't 'of their people'. It has long been held that the Lantean dragons do not lie, though they can at times be purposefully misleading in their answers.

Lantean dragons have no physical strength in combat, and cannot directly exhale fire upon a target. However, they are not defenseless. While all dragons have magic, and utilize it to some degree, Lantean dragons are very deeply in touch with their magic, and can pull off astonishing feats of magic with little thought. They dislike fighting, however, and will usually vanish from the battle if they can. If they are unable or unwilling to leave the battle, they are easily the most dangerous of opponents. The last recorded instance of more than one Lantean dragon entering the field of battle was in the year of 1818, when Spanish Conquistadors, on a joint expedition with the French, attempted to claim a region of the Lantean continent now known as Sticilixus. This region (as we now know) is holy to the dragons of Atlantis, and they defended it with fervor, leaving only one survivor, a Spanish sorceress known only as Naiara, who promptly reported the incident in full detail to the respective kings of France and Spain. Infused paintings of the battle can be seen on display at the Nexus Museum of Magical Arts.

Lantean dragons are known to be deeply philosophical, and can debate for weeks on obscure points when the fancy takes them. Their greatest influence on the world, outside of philosophy, is their interest in medical science, though they've often run afoul of ethics laws in their experimentation, and are not above the torture of a few specimens (even sentient specimens) in the name of advancing their field of study. They've even been known to experiment on their own young. Through their efforts, eight different cancers have been cured. Two of the cancers were magical cancers, which tend to be much harder to slow down, let alone cure entirely. This is something they point to in order to justify their research tendencies, and they argue that to not use the information they've discovered means that those who were tortured or killed were sacrificed in vain.

The debate on that point continues to rage loudly across the globe, seemingly having lost little of its original volume three decades prior. The Asian dragons, High Elves, as well as Humans on both sides of the magical line are split in their opinion of what the Lantean dragons did to attain their life-saving knowledge, while other races, such as the Dwarves and Goblins take a more pragmatic view of the Lantean's deeds.


End file.
